LAHORE, June 11: The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) said on Monday that it had consistently submitted complete and verified information in various official investigations into enforced disappearances.

The HRCP said this in a statement issued following remarks by Justice (retd) Javed Iqbal, head of the inquiry commission on missing persons, over the weekend that there had been baseless propaganda about the number of missing persons in the country and that authorities had been unable to compile details of those on the list of missing persons. He had claimed that foreign agencies were involved in the issue of missing persons.

“HRCP has never forwarded hearsay or any cases which it had not verified to the inquiry commission and always submitted information as per the United Nations pro forma for victims of enforced disappearance. That the commission of inquiry had succeeded in tracing many of the missing persons whose cases were submitted by HRCP was largely because all available details had been provided. The Balochistan government’s reported failure to provide complete details of missing persons on the list it had submitted to the commission is something only that government can explain.

“While propaganda and vested interests may be there, even Justice Iqbal would perhaps agree that Pakistani intelligence agencies have a lot to explain regarding enforced disappearances. The ex-judge’s claim of ‘concrete evidence’ of involvement of foreign agencies in abduction of Pakistani citizens raises the question of why the authorities have not managed to prevent their actions in Pakistani territory, shared the evidence with the people or taken up the matter with the countries in question. HRCP has been pursuing the case of enforced disappearances in the Supreme Court and elsewhere since January 2007. Why should it take years to discover foreign hands? It would be a sad day for justice in Pakistan if honourable judges started uncritically endorsing the intelligence agencies’ brief,” it said.